Category Archives: Shameful

Speaking of NYC failures, let’s add another to the list! Today is Friday, a day when we should all be figuratively twerking in the office over the fact that (most of us) get the weekend off. A favorite pastime for NYers on the weekend? Why, it’s going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art! I can say that, without a doubt, it is one of my ultimate happy places. Full of peace, beauty, and culture, it’s a haven to so many locals and tourists alike. So why is Mayor Michael Bloomberg, resident dick extraordinaire, trying to ruin that for us?

News broke this morning that Bloomberg “supports” the amendment to the Met’s lease of charging a mandatory $25 entrance fee i.e. he’s already granted them the right to do so. 25 FUCKING DOLLARS. DUDE. ARE YOU SHITTING ME RIGHT NOW? The average citizen can’t afford that for every single museum visits and certainly has no hope of ever seeing everything the museum has to offer without spending around $100, collectively, for multiple visits. And that same amount of money is only slightly more than what a family of four – two parents and two children – would spend in hopes of experiencing something more enriching than just the latest Pixar movie. This is outrageous and insulting yet completely unsurprising. The bottom line is that Bloomberg, a man whose net worth is $31 BILLION (as of September 2013), can’t conceive of how hard it is to shell out $25 for anything, much less a museum visit. Hmm. Food or art, food or art. Such a difficult decision.

The Met currently has a “suggested” entrance fee of the aforementioned $25 for adults, $17 for Seniors (likewise disgusting), and $12 for students. “Suggested” meaning that, if you can’t afford to pay the entire amount, you can still get in by paying either a portion or nothing at all! How many people in this city have been exposed to all manner of evocative art regardless of whether they came from the poorest section of the South Bronx or were a broke college student living off Ramen noodles? There have been many times in my life when all I’ve been able to spare has been a dollar or less. Now that I’m able to give somewhat more, I do. But never have I paid the full suggested price and I’m speaking as someone who, guess what, USED TO WORK AT THE MET. It’s one of the most beautiful and inspiring museums I’ve ever been to and it shouldn’t be restricted solely to duped tourists (a whole ‘nother can of worms) and rich douches like our Mayor.

No one is saying that this place shouldn’t be able to turn a profit. The fact remains, though, that the Met acquires a fair degree of it’s revenue from donations courtesy of people like…oh, hey, look at that. Bloomberg is a patron of the arts! You really can’t make this stuff up. The man has money to burn, donates to the arts (noble until you consider his personality and realize it’s probably for the tax write off), then wants to turn around and essentially decree that only those of his ilk should be allowed to enter this famous New York institution.

Hey, asshole! You’ve already stolen a 3rd term! Can you just STOP now?!

I have a headache. I went to bed with one last evening, and I woke up with one. If you feel in any way good about this country this morning, you must have somehow missed out on the verdict of the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin case last night. That, or there’s something dreadfully wrong with you.

Trayvon Martin.

As much as a certain percentage of the public would like to ignore the fact, yes, race is very much a factor here. It’s not a “card” that a disenfranchised population pulls out when they’re upset they didn’t get their way. The racial divide is something that is beyond evident when the core of a case is that a grown man stalked and killed a child but, because the victim was dark-skinned, he was clearly at fault for his own demise. Clearly, he was the threat. Despite the fact that the man inquestion was explicitly told by police dispatch to leave him be. Despite the child being unarmed and minding his own business. Travyon was at fault because he was too brown to possibly be innocent. Victim blaming, ladies and gents. It’s not just reserved for rape victims and LGBTQ biased assaults! If you are anything other than a conservative, white, cis-gendered male, YOU are a walking target. I, by the very grace of my existence, am a target. Brown children grabbing snacks on their way home…are a target. IF YOU INSIST ON ATTEMPTING TO REMOVE RACE FROM THE EQUATION, LET THE REALITY OF MEN KILLING CHILDREN OUT OF IGNORANCE AND FEAR IS SOMETHING THAT THIS JURY IN FLORIDA HAS DEEMED A-OKAY.

And this issue isn’t specific to Florida. Oh, no! Granted, they have a shit record when it comes to human rights but, this is a rampant, seething, infection flowing unchecked throughout the vascular system of the good ol’ US of A. It’s disgusting. It’s shameful. It’s heartbreaking.

Many are shocked that the 6, mainly white, women on the jury were part of this farce. But ask yourself why they would be. Not that they were right, because they most certainly weren’t, but why would they agree to the “not guilty” decision for George Zimmerman? Well, when you live in a society that continually sees young black men as aggressors, ESPECIALLY against women, its incredibly easy to have an unconsciously biased fear against Trayvon Martin. Not a single one of those women was a black woman, much less a black MOTHER, who lived with the truth of her child being racially profiled as part of the daily norm.

That’s not to say that there are no young, black male criminals! But they’re just as common as any other criminal. The difference is that society has trained us to see the black ones far more often than the white ones, to the point of seeing them where they DON’T EVEN EXIST as is evident in this case.

The skin color of both the main individuals involved have 100% overshadowed what really happened so, I’ll say it again: A grown man stalked–after he was told by a 911 operator to stay in his car, accosted, and killed an unarmed teen. This very essence of the situation is being missed and THAT is something that desperately needs to change. The death of Trayvon Martin was, for all intents and purposes, a modern-day lynching. A black male being exterminated for an imaginary slight. And, somehow, a Florida jury and an ignorant yet vocal group of Americans have decided that is once again acceptable. I think it’s way past time we thought about what this says about the “land of the free” and do something to change it. Because that’s our job as Americans. To be a beacon of hope, not despair.

Profiling, of any kind, is wrong. Whether its because of race, gender, lifestyle, etc. We’ve all been guilty of it, and will probably fall back into that habit at some time in our lives. That’s how fear works, that’s how the world and the communities we’ve created have groomed us. But as thinking beings, we have the innate ability to fight this.

Honestly. I’ve been turning into a loud, angry feminist this week, starting off with a certain “state” in the country–I mention no names. (My apologies to my beloved SilverFox husband, for my own rants.) Just know, I’ll be all over the map on this post, as I tend to do when something really gets my wet, stinky goat.

By now, everyone knows about the fallout from Paula Deen’s use of a completely unacceptable word. Dropped like a hot tater by EVERY SINGLE professional partnership she ever signed on with–and rightly so. My question to you is, why the gotdamnhell does Alec Baldwin continually get away with nasty behavior and slurs?

Let’s take a look at Baldwin’s rant on Twitter yesterday, as he “defended” his wife when she was accused of Tweeting during James Gandolfini’s funeral in New York yesterday:

Um. Wow. That’s some ugly Tweeting right there. Does Baldwin get away with this kind of talk because, allegedly, he’s a liberal man?? God knows, we’ve crucified (ahem) Mel Gibson for the bile he has spewed, but he’s a known conservative nutball, right? What if, say, Melissa McCarthy were the one in question here? What kind of backlash would she be getting? Fired from CBS? Boycotting of her new film? I guaran-effing-TEE we’d being seeing some woman-hate and not merely a collective shrug-off like, “oh, that ALEC and his silly temper!” I don’t see Capitol One dropping his ass, do you?

In other words, Baldwin gets a giggly-pass for his Words With Friends On A Planeperformance, another Twitter rant regarding a Starbuck’s barista.

Oh. Does anyone remember the voicemail Mr. Baldwin left his then 11-year old daughter, Ireland for not answering her phone at the designated time? Do the words “thoughtless little pig” ring a bell? Let me refresh your memory:

Is it just me? Or does this award-winning blow-hard just GET to do this shit? What are your feelings on this guy? I know of one journalist who doesn’t take kindly to Baldwin’s dirty mouth:

I believe Alec Baldwin could PUBLICLY call a woman the c-word and get away with doing so, because it’s a man’s world.